I remember back in my senior year of high school we were doing a lab on acids and bases.
I happened to have 2 solutions: HCl and NaOH.
They were the same exact concentration each.
If I were to mix equal amounts of both of them i would get salty water. This should be safe to drink as those 2 are strong in their respective nature they dissociate completely into ions (none of the acid or bass remains at all).
So I guess the question: is it safe to drink?
In: Chemistry
In theory- yes, safe to drink if equal amounts are mixed for HCl and NaOH. There us one “acid” for every one “base” in the reaction which will neutralize it.
In practice, no. Let’s pretend we ignore the “no eating or drinking in the lab” rule for a moment and look at this from the is it safe to drink practically standpoint.
Something important to be aware of with strong acids and bases is that they are like an “on/off switch”. Like you said, they dissociate completely. This means, once you use up all the HCl by reacting it with NaOH and move just past that point you’ll have excess NaOH and a potentially caustic (very basic) solution. With very dilute solutions, it’s a little less likely to reach pH extremes right away, but still possible. With concentrated acid or base, just 1 drop (or less) over the equivalence point can tip you into pH extremes. Even at reasonable pH, strong acids and bases are very reactive- not something you want to eat.
This is why buffers are so important. You don’t get the huge changes in pH like you would with strong acid/base reactions. Of course, if a strong acid is used to titrate a weak base, once the base is completely consumed, you still have the same problem. The reverse is also true.
The answer is no, for two reasons:
First, you can’t know for sure that the two compounds are filly mixed: there may be some un-reacted HCl or NaOH still in there somewhere. It’s probably not enough to hurt you but…
Second, you can’t know fore sure that there aren’t other contaminants in the glass where you mixed it, that might have become involved somehow.
In reality all the dissociated ions won’t perfectly react in a 1:1 ratio most of the time. The result of neutralization of a strong acid and a strong base is a salt and water, which theoretically would be safe to drink. Unfortunately, in almost every single case you will have trace amounts of excess base or excess acid.
Latest Answers